I channel the rote and the new and unseen. My head has always been the busiest of crossroads, a festival of happy and unhappy arrivals. In the hours before daybreak when I was a boy, god sent me words as visitors.
Jim ShepardI'll find something in what I read that snags my imagination in emotional terms; it resonates with me for reasons more complicated than just that it seems like it would make a good story.
Jim ShepardThe longer you go by yourself the weirder you get, and the weirder you get the longer you go by yourself.
Jim ShepardI think fiction is all about the exercise of the empathetic imagination. Part of what I do is let the stuff I read about meld with what I have experienced.
Jim ShepardI think there's no question that historians create; they would tell you that, I think. If I'm trying to imagine an imperial Roman position, it's much easier to imagine the poor schlub who's not even sure why he's doing what he's doing than it is to imagine Caesar. At least for me. And I'm intrigued, too, by the position of the poor schlub who *still* finds himself supporting the imperial project.
Jim ShepardThe protagonist of Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours doesnโt make it easy for us, channeling as he does Barry Hannah and Denis Johnson by way of Rick Bass and Dennis Hopper, and self-presenting as yet another damaged romantic who thinks itโs always time to play the cowboy, skating in and out of sense. He canโt see right, and heโs haunted by nearly everything. Heโs trying to open up or shut himself down or at least get a hold of himself. Heโs trying to make do with what heโs done, while he reminds us that weโre all, one way or another, in that position.
Jim Shepard